20demayo Chapter 148: Chapter XI: Torment
Chapter 148: Chapter XI: Torment
Chapter 148: Chapter XI: Torment
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(Reyvin's POV)
"I know what I am doing so stop distracting me damn it!" Edrassa hisses at me as her hands hover over a convulsing Falmer warrior, the creature's muscles bulge as the magic inside it twists and turns.
"Are you quite sure about that?" I retort condescendingly, my eyes glowing with attention.
Her head snaps in my direction just in time for the Magicka she poured inside the sedated creature to destabilize and cause all its blood vessels to burst, immediately covering the poor girl in blood and gore.
I cannot help but laugh at her expression, she looks like she wants to strangle both me and the recently detonated Falmer.
I raise my hands mockingly "Oh don't give me that look, I just sped up what you were about to do anyways. S."
"What do you mean?" She questions, completely done with life.
"Well, you obviously did not stabilize each organ as you went about your work meaning that the body was going to burst no matter what" I explain simply "And if I allowed you to continue you would have gotten bone shrapnel to the face and then I would have to heal you, which would be inconvenient."
She throws the towel she was wiping her face with onto a nearby table and grumbles "Why don't you do it then?" She asks sarcastically "If you are oh so wise and learned, why not just do everything yourself?"
I ignore her insolent tone and explain patiently "Because my dear Retainer I have other things to focus on and am still working on perfecting the spell formula and the notes you take on the process will help me greatly." and just as she is about to nod in understanding I add "And I would not wish to deprive you of the rich learning experience, that would be cruel."
She groans in frustration and leaves to write everything down everything she learned thus far, a very confused Nightshade hobbling after her.
I make my way toward a heavily secluded section of my little compound and unseal the stone doorway just in time to let a tired Marco, who was dragging a knocked-out Dunmer, enter.
As he does so scorch flies in and rapidly perches his shrunken form on my shoulder, immediately transferring his memories of the little adventure he went on.
"So that was the beast's master?" I ask curiously, my memories of the guild of murderhobos were quite dim as I always found the very concept of their organization to be idiotic and avoided them completely, well unless I was in the process of culling them that is.
I note the state of the prisoner as Marco tosses her onto the ground and can't help but jokingly ask "What happened to being a gentleman Marco?"
He sighs and very lightly kicks her leg "I thought I was finally going to get some and then she just had to go and be an idiot about it."
"Eh, worst case you can just go for one of the workers" I shrug "There ought to be an Orc whose tastes you fit."
"Fuck off" He scowls for a moment before bursting into laughter.
A moment of relaxed silence later I turn serious "I do not believe you want to stay here for what is to come" As expected he nods and I continue "Go and fetch Davos, I have need of his skills."
He looks down at the downed woman with pity, he seems to want to tell me something but merely shakes his head sadly before leaving.
Davos arrives quickly and we prepare the small room for what is to come, the spider the assassin sent to attack me while I was alone standing perfectly still in one of the corners and patiently waiting for my orders.
As everything is nice and tidy I nod to Davos who empties a bucket of freezing cold water onto the assassin's head, she gasps and rapidly looks around before her eyes land on me.
"Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly." I state eerily and she gulps in fear.
(Minthara's POV)
"What do you mean you can't tell me where he is?" I ask, impatiently tapping my foot on the hard ground in front of Reyvin's tents.
shuts her mouth as hard as she can.
Rolling his eyes Reyvin raises a hand, forcing her jaw to open with a groan of bones, and
forces the liquid down her throat with the other.
The assassin looks as if she expects pain, but when her limbs slowly start re-growing she first
feels relief, and then an expression of pure dread appears on her face. "Ha!" Reyvin exclaims "You thought!" he points at her with disturbing amounts of
satisfaction. I quickly leave the tent, deciding that my lessons could wait a bit longer.
(Reyvin's POV)
It took me three empowered potions of regeneration to finally break the murderhobo. As I had guessed there was another member of the brotherhood skulking about, the Shadowscale
Argonian.
He was not among our hired help, yet he had somehow sneaked in with us. He would likely
skulk about before trying to stab me in a crucial moment of weakness, and we can't be having that. Besides, killing a Shadowscale will give me some nice brownie points with the Telvanni.
I delivered my own brand of poetic justice by having Gabriella's spider consume her and sent the thing to hunt the Argonian.
I was not surprised by the brotherhood's attempt to kill me, I expected it even... but I was still furious at them and would thoroughly enjoy butchering the whole deranged 'family' of death
cultists.
A couple of days after the Falmer attacked us and I dealt with my unannounced visitor we were finally prepared to go on the attack. Well, I say that but we would still need to skulk about as our numbers did not magically increase all of a sudden.
My automatons were good for defending but I did not have the time to optimize their systems for all-purpose warfare so sending them forward would be wasteful.
We had to take baby steps in our expansion, take too much and we get overwhelmed, take too
little and people get uppity. The clearing of Blackreach would likely take us months, and keeping morale up was no doubt going to become a problem.
Still, the rewards would no doubt be worth it. Now just how to convince everyone that fighting
a dragon was a good idea?
Remember my little parable about spiders and bone chewing?
Did you think I was kidding?
Stones, please!
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